hahahaha mine iz bazcially tha zame 
altho
i haff no idea whut tha hell that wuz zuppozd to mean 
hahaha
da DRUG
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Top three these days is Richter, Hofmann and Fiorentino. I’d remove Cziffra, Cortot and Friedman from the list. I’d add Lipatti and Freire. Not sure who else.
Mine:
No particular order top 4 faves:
Friedman, Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, Moiseiwitsch.
Cziffra was no1 then, Is no1 now. Will remain no1 in aeternum.
The rest of my list is difficult because I listen to so much rarer repertoire with less available recordings of each piece.
Hamelin is high up my list for this very reason but I no doubt acknowledge if more pianists played those rarer works I love - he would be less dominant.
I remember a time when Hamelin was your favourite pianist.
I think my current list looks like this:
- Richter
- Feinberg
- Gieseking
- Rachmaninoff
- Friedman
- Freire
- Barere
- Gilels
- Fiorentino
- Annie Fischer
Honorable Mention: Arrau, Judd, Eckardstein, Favorin, Kapell, Volodos
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He is my favourite living pianist.
My exposure to Cziffra was via the Art of Piano and I bought the same EMI 5cd Liszt set as da Zepp did back in about 2001 and he’s been my favourite pianist since.
Horowitz always at no2 actually, that hasn’t changed either.
The rest of my list are very hard to number but I’ll have a think.
Judd is such a tragic story, he had incredible potential.
I’ve only seen his Tchaikovsky perfs on youtube etc, not delved into many of his recs, which would you recommend?
Oh yeah I had that too! Also the 5 CD Chopin set. Although my first Ziff was the standalone TEs disc.
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There are only 4 CDs. Listen to all of 'em.
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His rhythmic ‘bending’ - those signature accelerandos and ‘eccentricities’ are the things I love most about his playing. It’s very much a colour thing. And his improvisations & paraphrases are incredible.
This is my favourite studio recording of his.
The funny thing is this piece played by anyone else has never moved me but in his interpretation it is one of the most moving things I’ve ever heard. The way he alternately squeezes tight and lets loose the pulse of the music feels like something I never heard anyone else do. It’s like he says ‘time is mine’ and bends the pulse of the music to the surges of his heart rate as he feels it.
I really see his fury as pain and sadness transcended in a kind of cathartic exorcism.
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lol at the comments section on that video, though. Btw, my favourite studio recording is the Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este. It’s still my favourite version.
Youtube comment sections are like the sun, they’re there but try not to look directly at them.
Cziffra x 10.
Ok, trying to be less frivolous…
- Cziffra
- Wild
- Rach
- ABM
Order becomes a bit indeterminate after that, so I’ll pick -
Friedman, Bolet, Lazar Berman, Thibaudet, Katsaris and da Ho…
and accept that’s not my definitive top ten as it probably changes around a bit.
Edit: fuck, forgot Richter. JYT is the obvious one to drop, but I really like some of his playing.
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Damn, datz a goodass list, Chris!
honeztly kojjs live rec of dat iz my favourite…
Oh yeah, I remember that!
HAHAHAHA FUCKKKKKKKK
we haff all done zum regretable zheeyatz az kidz but DAIIIM diz
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ahahahsshaaha I wuz pozzibly drunk?
I iz drunk again (or ztill) so I vil roll with dat